Ms Anne Vaughan:

I accept that and that would be seen easily locally. I presume the committee's report touched on that issue, too.

On IDA Ireland companies and employers and what has been brought into regions, that is a space we are getting into. Our area and divisional managers meet local enterprise groups and IDA Ireland; therefore, we are joined up. We are clear that the Department of Social Protection is very much looking at the supply side. Obviously, the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and all of its agencies are looking at the demand side and the two must come together and take into account the fact that it is people about whom we are talking.

On what is happening and how we can gear up better, it cannot all be about the Department of Social Protection. It is very much in the space of SOLAS, the ETBs and the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. If one looks at Pathways to Work 2013, all these Departments and agencies are involved and have individual and grouped responsibilities; therefore, we must prepare on that basis. I accept the Senator's points in that regard.

Late last week I met NALA and discussed both issues at a policy, strategic and individual level. As it happens, work is being done in some of Mr. Carroll's offices with NALA and it is quite satisfied in that space.

I will ask Mr. McKeon to say a little about apprenticeships and the success of the measures taken. It is probably too early to talk about whether Intreo is a success. Apprenticeships which are with FÁS come under the new ETBs and SOLAS. I am aware from my colleagues in the Department of Education and Skills that a review is under way which will report by the end of the year. In fact, apprenticeships and traineeships are being reviewed. Mr. Duffy is chairing the review of apprenticeships; therefore, that issue is very much on the radar.

What members are seeing, in the very fact that the Department of Social Protection is rightly reporting to the committee, is a joined-up approach in jobs, education and social welfare payments.